How do I train my horse to better go around the barrel?

Training a horse to arc correctly around a barrel is a process that starts nowhere near the barrel itself, and that's the part most riders skip. Before a barrel ever enters the picture, your horse needs to be supple, responsive to your leg, and able to bend correctly on a circle at all three gaits. A horse that's stiff through his ribcage, heavy on the forehand, or ignores your inside leg is going to fall through every turn regardless of how many times you run the pattern. The barrel just exposes the holes — it doesn't create them and it can't fix them. Start your foundational work on large circles away from the barrels entirely. You want your horse bending around your inside leg, maintaining an arc through his whole body from nose to tail, with his shoulder up and his hindquarters driving underneath him. That shape — bend, shoulder up, hind end engaged — is exactly what a correct barrel turn requires, and building it on a twenty-meter circle at the lope is far more productive than drilling it at the barrel where speed and adrenaline get in the way of learning. When you do introduce the barrel, walk it first. Literally walk your horse around the barrel in a tight arc, using your inside leg to push him out and keep his shoulder from diving in, and your outside rein to shape the turn. Feel for where he wants to drop his shoulder, cut in, or bulge out — those are the specific resistances you need to address. Trot it next, and only move to the lope when the trot feels correct and consistent. Rushing this progression is the single most common training mistake in barrel horses. Pole work and single-barrel drills are more valuable than full pattern runs during the training phase. Running the full pattern repeatedly on a horse that doesn't yet understand the turn just rehearses the mistakes. Instead, isolate the problem — work one barrel, fix the turn, reward the correct arc, and end there. The full pattern comes together on its own once each individual piece is correct. A horse that truly understands how to shape his body around a barrel will show you clean, efficient turns without you muscling him through every stride, and that efficiency is where the fast times actually live.